Who does what in corporate communications, from factual authority to incident coordination

Corporate communications team roles are functions, not a prescribed org chart. For Cedar Vale Engineering Ltd's fictional England site proposal, one person may hold several functions only where authority, competence and conflicts are recorded. A specialist stop decision must remain independent of schedule or cost pressure.

Method: records were checked on 6 September 2026. Scope: one England-operating buyer, with UK or Great Britain sources labelled. Inclusions: functions needed to authorise, release, correct and close the message. Exclusions: staffing norms, job titles, pay, seniority and recruitment forecasts. Ranking: none. Conflicts: none declared.

1. Decision and factual authority

This function confirms whether the site proposal is undecided, approved or withdrawn. It owns source documents, effective dates, uncertainties and the permitted spokesperson. It cannot delegate factual truth to the copywriter. When employee interests are affected, ACAS consultation guidance helps the employment specialist identify who should be heard before a final decision; it does not decide Cedar Vale's obligations.

2. Claims and channel control

The claims reviewer classifies statements as factual, subjective or forward-looking and tests documentary support. The channel reviewer separately determines whether material is editorial, statutory, service, investor, promotional or paid. CAP Code Section 3 supplies the advertising substantiation boundary within its remit. Corporate approval alone cannot make an unsupported claim safe.

3. Privacy and contact governance

This function maps employee details, stakeholder lists, survey data, platform logs and contact purposes. It records access, retention, objection and suppression routes. The ICO's data-protection-by-design guidance was updated on 5 February 2026 and calls for privacy consideration throughout a processing lifecycle. A qualified reviewer must still determine Cedar Vale's facts and any PECR question.

4. Rights and source stewardship

The rights owner verifies who created each photograph, recording, graphic and passage, then records the licence, territory, term, edits and attribution. IPO ownership guidance notes that a commissioner does not automatically acquire copyright. This function can stop reuse even after factual approval.

5. Accessibility and recipient use

The accessibility owner identifies what affected employees and other recipients need to read, hear, navigate or respond to. They commission suitable formats, arrange testing and own corrections. GOV.UK's accessible-formats guidance is aimed at government communication, so it provides prompts rather than a private-company clearance.

6. Security and incident coordination

The security function controls accounts, release permissions, logs and recovery. During an incident it shares verified technical facts without allowing communications staff to improvise them. NCSC incident-communication guidance is written for UK organisations and supports preparation across technical, legal and communication teams; it specifies no Cedar Vale structure.

7. Publishing, correction and records

The publisher releases only the approved version and records channel, time and result. A correction owner can freeze reuse, replace controlled copies and mark superseded records. The archive owner retains evidence under a documented schedule, then confirms access removal, export or deletion at close-out.

The buyer should assign names only after checking competence and authority. If a function is unfilled, conflicted or unable to stop release, the communication remains on hold.

For every assignment, record the person's decision boundary, deputy, evidence they may accept and matters they must escalate. Test the hand-off using the fictional source copy. A title on a chart is not proof that its holder received the record, understood the stop rule or can retrieve the correction history.

Document any combined functions as an explicit exception. The record should explain why the combination is workable, which decisions need a second reviewer and who intervenes if the holder is absent or involved in the disputed claim. Cedar Vale should rehearse a correction when the normal approver is unavailable. If nobody can authorise withdrawal, protect employee confidentiality and preserve the audit trail at the same time, the allocation fails before publication.